MARKET GLOBALISM

(Ideologies of Globalization)
Ideological Dimension of
Globalization
[…this article seeks to establish that] globalism not
only represents a set of political ideas and beliefs
coherent enough to warrant the status of a new
ideology, but also constitutes the dominant
ideology of our time against which all of its
challengers must define themselves.

(Steger, Ideologies of Globalization, in Journal of

Political Ideologies, 10 (1), 11-30)
Market globalism is a hegemonic system of
ideas that makes normative claims about a
set of social process called ‘globalization’.
(Steger, 2014:25)
…globalization contains an ideological
dimension filled with a range of norms,
claims, beliefs, and narratives about the
phenomena itself.
(Steger, 2014:25)
 IDEOLOGY

Coined during the French Revolution by Antoine

Destutt de Tracy, “Ideologie” refered to a new science
of ideas, literally an idea-logy. (Heywood, 2012:5)
 IDEOLOGY

A system of a widely shared ideas, patterned beliefs,

guiding norms and values, and ideals accepted as truth
by some groups.
Ideologies offer individuals a more or less coherent
picture of the world not only as it is, but also as it
ought to be.
(Steger, 2014:24)
 IDEOLOGY

In doing so, ideologies help organize the tremendous

complexity of the human experiences into fairly simple
claims that serve as guide and compass for social and
political action.
(Steger, 2013:103)
 IDEOLOGY
An ideology is a more or less coherent set of ideas that
provide the basis for organized political action, whether
this is intended to preserve, modify, or overthrow the
existing system of power. All ideologies therefore have the
following features:
1. offer an account of the existing order, usually in the form
of a ‘world view’
2. advance model of a desired future, a vision of a ‘good
society’
3. explain how political change can and should be brought
out—how to get from(a) to (b)
(Heywood, 2012:11)
Classical classification

LEFT CENTER RIGHT

COMMUNISM SOCIALISM LIBERALISM CONSERVATISM FASCISM

IDEOLOGY: Ricoeur’s Characterizations
THE FIRST FUNCTIONAL LEVEL : ideology as distortion, i.
e. the production of contorted images of social reality.
THE SECOND FUNCTIONAL LEVEL: legitimation
2 main factors:
a. the claim to legitimacy made by the ruling authority
b. the belief in the authority’s legitimacy granted by
its subjects
THE THIRD FUNCTIONAL LEVEL: integration—it creates,
preserves, and protects the social identity of persons and
groups.
 IDEOLOGY: its constructive function

Ideology supplies the

Symbols
Norms
Images
that go into the process of assembling
and holding together individual and
collective identity.
THE FIVE CLAIMS OF MARKET GLOBALISM
 The term Globalization became currently used in the
late 1980’s.
 Its conceptual unwieldiness arose from the fact that
global flows occur in different physical and mental
dimensions, usefully divided by Appadurai (1996) into
Ethnoscapes
Technoscapes
Mediascapes
Financescapes
Ideoscapes
Ethnoscapes
The landscape of persons who constitute the shifting
world in which we live: tourists, immigrants, refugees,
exiles, guest workers, and the other moving groups
and individuals constitute an essential feature of the
world and appear to affect the politics of (and
between) nations to a hitherto unprecedented degree.
(Chun, A. quoting Appadurai in The Wiley-Blackwell
Encyclopedia of Globalization, (2012) II, 563)
Technoscapes
The global flow of technology, whether it be high or low,
mechanical or informational, which can now move at
high speeds through previously impervious
bounderies.
From the Greek τεχνη [techne], craft, skill, trade;
indicating the intellectual process of producing an
object.
(Mele, V. quoting Appadurai in The Wiley-Blackwell
Encyclopedia of Globalization, (2012) IV, 1963)
Mediascapes

It involve both the electronic capability to produce and

transmit information around the world as well as the
images of the world that these media crate and
dissiminate.
(Ritzer & Dean, 2015:462)
Financescapes
Appadurai sees ‘financescapes’ as one of the perils of
economic globalization.
Financescapes is the cross-boarder movements of loans,
equities, direct and indirect investments, and
currencies that transcend the power of the nation-
state.
(Powell, J.I. quoting Appadurai in The Wiley-Blackwell
Encyclopedia of Globalization, (2012) II, 652)
Ideoscapes

Ideoscapes involve the flows of images that are primarily

political in nature, produced either by nation-states n
line with their ideology, or as ounter ideologies
produced by movements that seek to contest those in
power.
(Ritzer & Dean, 2015:461)
 THE FIVE CLAIMS OF MARKET GLOBALISM
Globalization Nobody is in Globalization
is about the charge of furthers the
Liberalizatio Globalization spread of
n and Global democracy in
Integration the world
of Markets
Globalization
Globalization
benefits
is Inevitable
everyone
and
(…in the long
Irreversible
run)
CLAIM 1: Globalization is about the Liberalization
and Global Integration of Markets

 “Globalization is about the triumph of markets

over governments”.
 “The driving idea behind globalization is free-
market capitalism-the more you let market forces
rule and the more you open your economy to free
trade and competition, the more efficient your
economy will be. Globalization means the spread
of free-market capitalism to virtually every country
in the world”.
CLAIM 1: Globalization is about the Liberalization
and Global Integration of Markets

 “Globalization must be applied to all countries,

regardless of the political and cultural preferences
expressed by the citizens”.
 Globalization is a natural economic phenomenon
whose essential qualities are the liberalization and
integration of global markets and the reduction of
governmental interference in the economy.
CLAIM 2: Globalization is Inevitable and
Irreversible
 Globalization reflects the spread of irreversible market
forces driven by technological innovation that make
the global integration of national economies
inevitable.
 Speaker Villar (1998): “We cannot simply wish away
the process of globalization. It is a reality of a modern
world. The process is irreversible.”
CLAIM 3: No body is in charge of Globalization

The most basic truth about globalization is

this: No one is in charge…We all want to
believe that someone is in charge and
responsible. But the global market place
today is an Electronic herd of often
anonymous stock, bond and currency
traders and multinational investors
connected by screens and networks.
(Friedman quoted by Steger, 2013:111)
CLAIM 3: No body is in charge of Globalization

The great beauty of globalization is that no

one is in control. The great beauty of
globalization is that it is not controlled by
any individual, any government, any
institution. (R. Hormats quoted by Steger,
2013:111)
CLAIM 4: Globalization benefits everyone (…in
the long run)

Market globalists frequently connect their arguments to

the alleged benefits resulting from trade liberalization:
rising global living standards, economic efficiency,
individual freedom, and unprecedented technological
progress.
(Steger, 2013:112)
CLAIM 5: Globalization furthers the spread of
democracy in the world

“Freedom, free markets, free trade and democracy are

synonymous terms”
CLAIM 5: Globalization furthers the spread of
democracy in the world
“The level of economic development resulting from
globalization is conducive to the creation of complex
civil societies with a powerful middle class it is this
class and societal structure that facilitates democracy”.
(Fukuyama, F., quoted in Steger, 2013:115)

“The Electronic Herd will intensify pressures for

democratization generally, for three very critical
reasons—flexibility, legitimacy, and sustainability.”
(Friedman, T. quoted in Steger, 2013:15)
McDONALDIZATION
(Steger, p. 35)

The process by which the principles of

the fast-food restaurant are coming to
dominate more and more sectors of
American society, as well as the rest of
the world. (Ritzer & Dean, 2015:462)
McDONALDIZATION

Friedman “The Lexus and the Olive

Tree”(2000:248):
No two countries that both had
McDonalds had fought a war against
each other since each got its
McDonald’s.
From market globalism to imperial
globalism…and back

The five claims discussed in this chapter show

that market globalism is sufficiently
systematic to add up to a comprehensive
political ideology.
Steger’s Conclusion: Reclassifying Ideologies
LEFT RIGHT

GLOBAL INTERNATIO GLOBAL NEW NATIONAL RELIGIOU

SOCIAL NAL- FEMINISM LOCALISM POPULISM S
JUSTICE POPULISM S FUNDAME
NTALISM

Steger, Ideologies of Globalization, in Journal of Political Ideologies

(2005) 10 (1) p. 27
 REFERENCES
Heywood, A. (2012) Political Ideologies An Introduction.
New York: Palgrave MacMillian.
Ritzer, G. , Ed. (2012) Encyclopedia of Globalization. United
Kingdom:Wilely-Blackwell
Ritzer, G. & Dean, P. (2015) Globalization A Basic Text.
United Kingdom:Wiley-Blackwell.
Steger, M. (2013) Globalization A Very Short Introduction.
United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Steger, M. (2005) Ideologies of globalization. Journal of
Political Ideologies 10 (1) 11-30.
Steger, M. (2014) Market Globalism in The SAGE Handbook of
Globalization, pp. 23-38